——
I lay frozen in the cold rain. I could see a grass hut just a few yards away. It was crowded with people huddled under the dubious shelter. I wanted to join them, but all I could move was my eyes, which I had to blink frequently to keep them from filling with water. I wanted to shift positions to take pressure off my sore shoulder, but I couldn’t. A vast weariness clung to my limbs, drawing me down to the earth, my jaw slack and my tongue lolling, an uncontrollable wad in my mouth.
The gang under the hut stood looking impassively at the rain. I knew they’d be no help to me. But the harder I tried to move, the less possible it seemed to be. It was like this for so long I almost started getting used to it when Eddie suddenly trotted into the area between me and the hut. His tail was wagging, slowly, the way it does when he wants to say hello, usually out of the blue, just for the hell of it. He looked over at me and barked, something he rarely did. I liked that about him, that he dispensed his barks sparingly, strategically.
I wanted to say to him what I usually said, something like, “Yeah, yeah, easy for you to say,” or “Frame that argument a little more clearly and maybe we’ll have something to debate.” But I couldn’t, because I couldn’t move my mouth or activate my vocal chords.
So, naturally, he kept barking. More and more insistently. I started worrying about the neighbors. I didn’t know them, except for Amanda, and I didn’t much care what they thought of me, but I always thought a barking dog was sort of rude.
“Knock it off, will ya?” I demanded, in my mind.
But he kept barking, and waving his long feathered tail.
“Sam, Holy Christ,” said Amanda.
Then the rain abruptly stopped. Eddie was still barking.
“Eddie, shut the hell up,” said Amanda, which he did, more or less.
The hut evaporated before my eyes, and the cedar walls of the shower enclosure emerged. That and Amanda’s wet hair, which fell from her forehead and smelled like tropical flowers, covering her face as she felt around my body.
“What the hell happened?” she asked.
She had a flashlight. When I opened my eyes she pointed it away from my face. She kept asking me urgent questions, but she didn’t know I couldn’t speak. Or move. On the other hand, maybe I could.
“Uh,” I said.
“Uh?”
“Fell.”
“You fell?”
Now I had Eddie’s wet nose poking around my face, his warm, prickly fur scraping over my wet body.
“Eddie!” Amanda yelled. “Get the hell out of here. He’s all right.”
“I am?”
I picked my left hand up off the floor and wiggled my fingers. I located my right hand and used it to push myself up so I was sitting with my back against the wall of the shower enclosure.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“You tell me.”
I looked at my legs sticking out in front of me. In the cold dark it was hard to see my toes, but I knew they were wiggling. I drew my knees up to my chest and flexed my leg muscles. Everything operational.
“Fucking hell, I’m cold. I got to dry off.”
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No you’re not. You’re going to help me stand up. Then you’re going to hand me that towel.”
“What happened? Talk to me.”
“I am. I’m talking to you now. I’m telling you to help me stand up.”
I gripped her arm and together we stood. The floor of the shower enclosure had been reattached to the earth. I snatched the towel off the hook and wrapped it around me.
“That was interesting,” I said.
“Let me drive you to the hospital,” said Amanda.
“You want to help me?” I asked.
“I do.”
“Follow me into the cottage. If I pass out along the way, leave me where I fall.”
“Okay. Sure.”
My equilibrium seemed as good as it ought to be after a few tumblers of Absolut and pomegranate cosmopolitans. My head was clear—no more little clicks—but I thought I heard a distant ring. Before we reached the side porch I gently shook off her grasp and walked on my own. The ground held and my heart stayed calm in my chest.
Eddie had stayed welded to my side. When I reached the side porch I squatted down and scratched his ears, letting him look me over.
“I’m okay, man. Everything’s okay.”
“You have to let me get you to the hospital,” said Amanda, almost knocking me down as she shoved her way into the kitchen.
“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
“That’s not up to you.”
When I stood up the world tipped a little, but then righted itself. The ringing in my ears was gone. My mouth was dry and my hands and feet tingled, but otherwise, no major upheavals. I walked into the house.
“It has to be up to me, beautiful,” I said to her. She and Eddie followed me into the bedroom where I dug out some clean clothes. After slipping on my jeans I sat on the bed and took stock again. All faculties seemed nearly intact. Acuities an open question.
“You’re afraid to go,” she said.
“I am.”
“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything.”
“I’m afraid of hospitals. People die in those places.”
“You still haven’t told me what happened.”
“Just had a little vertigo. Slipped and hit my head.”
“You should have seen your face when I found you. It was awful.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I said.
“Eddie was going berserk. It didn’t sound normal. I knew something was wrong.”
“Worried about getting his dinner.”
I went into the kitchen and poured another drink. Amanda scowled at me, but didn’t say anything. The three of us went out to the screened-in porch where I sat at the pine table. Eddie and Amanda secured the floor. As I settled down, I noticed tiny pinpricks were sticking at my fingertips where I held the chilled glass. I worked on regulating my breathing and slowing my pulse rate. Amanda worked on her scowl.
“What happened to all the edibles?” I asked.
“You actually want to eat?”
“And drink and be merry.”
I let her talk me into staying put while she went to get the food. I was glad to be alone on my porch for a little while. I took off one of the storm windows so I could look through the screen at the water and hear the sounds of the birds and bay waves. The air was cool but calm, and the porch would stay warm enough as long as I stoked the woodstove.
My hand had a slight tremor when I took a drink. I switched the glass to my left hand, which was steadier. An unwanted recollection of the punchy old guys who hung around the gym in New Rochelle forced its way into my mind. Their lumpy faces and hands swollen into balloons, the flesh pink and smooth, stretched taut with edema. Hands that shook so badly they couldn’t hold a full cup of coffee. Their heads bobbing uncontrollably, involuntarily agreeing with everything you said.
You’d think the owners of the gym would shoo them away, afraid the ravages of the trade would deter young fighters. But every gym had the same old guys. A standard feature of the ambiance. Nobody saw them as a cautionary tale, the blindness of youth and commerce being what it is.
